This year’s Global Mobile Awards are a real sign of the times, with mobile platforms ever-increasing in use and popularity and mobile advertising companies facing explosive rates of growth.
The market of mobile advertising is growing extremely quickly, with the US mobile ad industry expected to increase by almost 100% in 2012 to $2.3 billion and a global growth of over 60% to $6.4 billion (compare this with 2010’s global spend of roughly $4 billion). This rapid increase is a result of a number of factors, namely the strong US, Chinese and Japanese mobile markets, the increasing number of smartphone users, consumers spending more and more time with their mobile devices, larger network exposure and data services (3g, 4g) and the high proportion of mobile browser and mobile application usage.
It is reported by Nielsen that 64% of time spent on mobile phones is on applications and 11% with browsers, and when we combine this with the hundreds of millions of smartphone users around today and the rapid conversion of non-smartphone users, few markets are currently holding more potential, more money to be made and more digital media jobs to be offered, than the mobile marketing sector.
The potential is clearly there, but what is also clear is that mobile advertising models — and the agencies utilizing them – are in their infancy, and the industry still has much to learn. As mobile advertising models advance and as new technologies establish better advertising techniques, we can expect to see many new trends, but what trends are hot to watch right now? Let’s take a look.
Behavioral Adverting Targeting
Smartphones are no-longer new, but mobile ad targeting is still very general, with models using devices and demographics as the main criteria to decide which advertisement to display. We can expect rapid advancement over the coming years in behavioral targeting, which will use user smartphone behavior, location and demographics to provide highly specialized and highly effective mobile advertising.
Increasing Job Positions
With the mobile app marketplace settling down, new methods of profit are coming to the forefront, including new ad operations and advanced as reporting for mobile apps and games. Many publishers are now establishing and expanding dedicated in-house teams to focus especially on mobile apps, with a focus on revenue diversification.
Advertising Standardization across Different Mobile Platforms
In the very early days of mobile advertisement and up to the present, advertisers have had to deal with a confusing array of advertising network platforms; major network platforms such as Apple iAds and Google AdMob, independent networks such as InMobi and a number of other mobile demand platforms. In the interests of clarity, we will likely see consolidations, such as the consolidation of demand-side advertising platforms and traditional network platforms. This will make advertising networks more approachable, and make things less complicated and convoluted for advertising and marketing firms.
Real-time Mobile Advertisement Bidding
This will likely be a real game changer for the mobile advertising market. Real-time bidding is an emerging advertising technology that applies the principles of free-market competition to ensure fair prices, better control and better ad targeting. Advertisers will be able to see exactly what they are getting and for what cost (controlled by themselves through bidding), and publishers will find more sources of revenue from the competitive auction of advertising space.